Does Accessibility Help With eCommerce CRO?

Had this great question yesterday:

“_“Is accessibility just a legal exercise so we don’t get sued or does it actually help CRO (and do we only have to worry about this on our US site)?”_“ — - redacted

Answer:

Yes, there is legal risk and it is a scary-looking monster.

But beyond the legal side, a lot of accessibility requirements are things that make your website easier to use.

• Text people can read

• Clear cues for what is clickable

• Journeys that do not rely on colour alone

• Navigation, forms and checkout you can tab through

• Buttons big enough to hit on mobile

• Proper labels and helpful error messages

• Forms that do not make people re-enter the same thing

• Logins and verification steps that are not a puzzle

• Journeys that still work for keyboard users, screen readers, zoom, and people who are not using your site under perfect conditions

And easier to use usually means less friction, which can improve conversion.

That is broadly what WCAG 2.2 is designed to support, and it is the standard many laws and policies point to.

Most of the web is still awful at this.

According to WebAIM’s 2026 report on accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages, 95.9% had detectable accessibility failures.

With these being the most common:

• 83.9% had low-contrast text

• 53.1% had missing alternative text for images

• 51% had missing form labels

Basic usability that loads of brands are still getting wrong.

And to answer the other part of this question, no, it is not just a US thing.

The US gets most of the attention because of the ADA (and lawsuits).

But its important in other countries too.

In the UK, public sector websites generally need to meet WCAG 2.2 AA.

And under the Equality Act, service providers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments.

The European Accessibility Act started applying on 28 June 2025 and it covers eCommerce for in-scope businesses.

The Australian Human Rights Commission updated its guidance in 2025 and says organisations should be aiming for WCAG 2.2 AA as a minimum.

So if you sell online, this is not something to shrug off just because you are not in the US.

And it’s also important because the audience is not small.

• 1 in 6 people globally experience significant disability.

• At least 2.2 billion people have a vision impairment.

• More than 1.5 billion live with hearing loss.

• Colour blindness affects roughly 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women.

That is a lot of people to just ignore and not accommodate.

Chat soon,

Peter